Review of Snapshot Adventures: Secret of Bird Island

Large Animal Games certainly found a new gaming experience when creating Snapshot Adventures. Through collaboration with the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Large Animal Games created a a very convincing virtual birding photography experience.

Storyline

Your character is charged with following your missing Grandfather's path across the United States. At each stop you meet with "friends" of your Grandfather's. Each of them will ask you to take photographs of specific birds for magazines before they will help you search for your Grandfather. For added realism, one even offers to pay you with birdseed!

Photography Specifics

Taking the Pictures
The game does a good job of replicating the viewfinder of a typical camera. Optional zoom lenses, a flash, and rapid exposure capability all make this game a lot like real photography. Flash and shutter noise will also scare the birds away. You are limited in how much equipment you can carry. Other gadgets are wishful thinking but fun to use, like a stopwatch that will freeze the birds in mid-flight for a few moments.
The biggest departure from photography is that you cannot take vertical images and your film is limited to 12 shots per round.

Photo Scoring
Scoring of photos is handled by awarding points for centered images, action shots, and filling the frame. You are penalized for dark images and cropping out part of the bird. While this ignores background issues and sometimes leads to odd images being scored very high, the overall effect is generally good. I would suggest not worrying too much about scoring and simply keep the images you prefer.

Gameplay

Gameplay is very simple with mouse controls. The characters you meet tell you what photographs you need to take. Occasionally the character will obscure a really nice shot while they are giving you directions. Shoot well enough and you get the cover shot of a magazine.

Summary

Snapshot Adventures: The Secret of Bird Island is the most realistic photography game I have found so far and still manages to be fun in the process. While the photo-scoring part of the game does fall short in many respects, it stays true to many of the practices required to create stunning avian images. Many realistic features make this game a great way to hone your reflexes and just play on days when you can't take "real pictures". Snapshot Adventures truly stands out as a huge leap forward in a long-neglected gaming field.

Sneak Preview Info
Wade Tinney, founding partner of Large Animal Games, tells me that a sequel to Snapshot Adventures: The Secret of Bird Island is in the works. They would love to hear feedback from photographers regarding gameplay. Email them at feedback@largeanimal.com. And if you are really hooked on the game, you can sign up to possibly be a playtester at: Large Animal Playtest. Mr. Tinney even gave us a bit of insight as to the next game theme. One of the main accessories for gameplay will be an oxygen tank.